THEATER REVIEW : Evolving Door Makes Its Name With “Mud”

Revolving Door Productions has been spinning unevenly at the Tribune Theatre. A lame attempt at Shakespeare a few months ago was followed by an interesting but spotty evening of one-acts. But it’s such a young and ambitious company that something was bound to get through the door on one spin or another.

“Mud,” a tragedy by Maria Irene Fornes, is an unusual piece for the troupe to be interested in. But it happens to be exactly Revolving Door’s piece of meat.

The group attacks “Mud” with bravado. The three cast members directed themselves from their interpretations of the playwright’s script notations. It was a dangerous move, but they’ve pulled it off with intelligence, theatricality and, above all, total honesty.

Fornes’ back-country plot involves illiterate Mae (Jennifer Bishton), who is going to school but not picking up much. She lives with Lloyd (Steve Spehar), who was brought home by her late father to keep her company. They have “mated,” but Mae doesn’t want to live like a dog, and Lloyd is little more than an animal. Enter Henry (Bradley A. Whitfield) in a shirt and tie that don’t fool anybody. He’s a step above Mae and Lloyd, but not a big step.

The play is a powerful statement about a young woman’s doomed attempt to make a better life for herself, to forge something out of nothing. Fornes has drawn her parable in the darkest tones with the most ironic humor. It is difficult writing, difficult to bring to life with any sense of reality, but this cast does it with insight and an inner illuminating glow.

Bishton is deep-hued, feisty and sometimes monumental; her performance is many-layered and intricate. Spehar has found a valid and surprising poetry in Lloyd’s abysmal bestiality. His is a virtuoso performance, as affecting in its physicality as in its darkness. Whitfield is expertly restrained, with a facade of slight pomposity overlaying the older Henry’s trudging exactness and an ignorance that can’t be hidden by his attempts at social normality.

Spehar’s scenic and lighting designs capture the desperate poverty of spirit that weaves through the tragedy, and completely improvised music by Nick Boicourt Sr., Chris Dalu, Erica Dewey and Michael Mollo helps to place Fornes’ world within our grasp.

“Mud,” Tribune Theatre, 116 1/2 Wilshire, Fullerton. Thursday through Sunday, 8:30 p.m. Ends Sunday. $5. (714) 525-3403. Running time: 1 hours, 20 minutes. Steve Spehar: Lloyd Jennifer Bishton: Mae Bradley A. Whitfield: Henry

A Revolving Door Production of a tragedy by Maria Irene Fornes, directed by the cast. Scenic/lighting design: Steve Spehar. Stage managers: Nick Boicourt Jr., Chris Egger.